no less than Sidney’s later, show that he was right: the difficulty was not to take but to keep. ‘Six thousand good men,’ Travers added, ‘divided in three places as I could give instruction, with certain craftsmen to inhabit the places they win, might make a general reformation in one summer.’ The advice was sound, but the Crown could not afford to take it.228
Grey’s last raid into Ulster.
Once more before young Gerald had left Ireland did Grey turn his attention to the North. For the third time O’Neill promised to meet him, and for the third time he failed to appear. Without victuals, and trusting to plunder for the support of his men, the Lord Deputy then rode ‘thirty-four miles of ill way’ to Dungannon, and again nearly caught the troublesome chief. But the guides, perhaps intentionally, delayed the soldiers on their night march, and daybreak found them still five miles from Dungannon. O’Neill had time to escape. Six days were spent in promiscuous burnings, during which the soldiers had no bread and lived on freshly killed beef: it is no wonder that disease was rife in the ranks. This was Grey’s last warlike expedition; successful in a certain sense, but quite useless as a matter of policy.229
Recall of Grey. Consequent confusion.
Grey had often asked leave to go to Court and lay the state of Ireland before the King, begging that his adversaries might not be allowed to ruin him behind his back. His request was now to be granted in an unexpected manner. One of his last acts in Ireland was a quarrel with the Council, in spite of whose remonstrances he sent over Travers, the Master of the Ordnance, with despatches, though he seems to have agreed with them that a man who could be better spared would have done the business just as well. Sir William Brereton, Marshal of the Army, had lately broken his leg, an accident from which he seems never to have fully recovered; Edward Griffiths, another useful officer, was dying of diarrhœa; Travers was the only available officer, and his own department was in bad order. Yet Grey sent him, perhaps because he thought his talk would be favourable to him. The immediate result of Travers’s journey was that the King sent for Grey, professing his anxiety to see him and to send him back to Ireland in time for the fighting season at the end of May. Brereton was to act as Lord Justice during his absence. Henry declared himself willing to raise the wages of soldiers in Ireland, which had been fixed three years before at 5l. 6s. 8d. a year for horsemen and half that sum for footmen, and which had been found quite inadequate. Deplorable disorders had resulted from the necessities of the men. Henry expressed his intention of keeping the troops on the Irish borders instead of in Dublin. Coming events cast their accustomed shadow before, and Grey’s recall, for recall it was understood to be, was known to the public sooner than to the officials. It was of course suggested that Grey purposely concealed the truth in order to embarrass the Council; and he refused their prayer to stay until arrangements had been made for the defence of the Pale. His activity had evidently inspired respect, for he had no sooner crossed the Channel than the O’Tooles made a raid towards Dublin. O’Byrne warned the citizens, and they had time to make ready. The Kavanaghs attacked the Wexford settlers. The O’Connors burned Kildare. Alen and Brabazon had also been called to England, but they were obliged to wait for a fitter time. ‘The country,’ wrote Brereton in excusing their absence, ‘is in very ill case, being assured of no Irishman’s peace.’230
Trial and execution of Grey.
An enormous number of charges were brought against Grey. He was accused of maintaining the King’s enemies and depressing the King’s friends, of injustice to Irishmen and others, of violence towards Councillors and others, and of extortion. There is no reason to suppose that he could have taken young Gerald, with whom, in Stanihurst’s quaint language, he was accused of ‘playing bo-peep;’ but no doubt he had been guilty of much injustice, as his unprovoked invasion of Ferney and his treatment of O’More sufficiently prove. He cannot be called a man of scrupulous honour, or he would not have arrested the Geraldines at dinner, or professed his intention to capture his nephew by fair means or foul. But Henry VIII. knew how to pardon such conduct, though he could punish his instruments when it suited him. The Irish chiefs felt that they could not trust Grey, and therefore kept no faith with him. He was accused on all sides of greed, and especially of making useless expeditions for the sake of plunder. The usual inquisition made after his arrest shows that he had some private hoards. He was violent in Council, and no doubt it was often hard for a Viceroy, especially for one who suffered from gout, to deal with the Dublin officials, who were independent of him and sometimes spies on his conduct. ‘I think,’ says Walter Cowley, ‘there is not one of the King’s Council there but my Lord Deputy successively have sore fallen out with them.’ But he was rude and tyrannical to others also, as to Lord Delvin, whose life he was accused of shortening by insults, and especially by calling him traitor, ‘which,’ says the old Earl of Ormonde, ‘shall never be proved.’ In any case and whatever his actual guilt, a cloud of witnesses appeared to denounce Grey.231 He pleaded guilty, rather in hopes of mercy than acknowledging his faults; but no pardon followed. That he had any treasonable intention is more than doubtful, but there was more against him than against Buckingham; he suffered a year’s imprisonment in the Tower, and then underwent the fate to which his treacherous compliance with a tyrant’s wishes had condemned his Geraldine kinsmen.
FOOTNOTES:
201. Ormonde to St. Leger, March 12, 1538. See also the ‘Fall of the Clan Kavanagh,’ by Hughes, Irish Archæological Journal, 4th series, vol. ii., 1873. Erics were compositions for murder, caines for other felonies. Rahownes may be the same as ‘sorohen.’ I do not understand allyieg, unless it be ‘allying’ with the Irish.
202. Four Masters, 1537; Brabazon to Aylmer and Alen, Whitsuntide, 1538; Council of Ireland to Cromwell, June 10, 1538.
203. Grey to the King, June 4, 1538; Brabazon to Aylmer and Alen, Whitsuntide; Luttrell to Aylmer, June 5; Council to Aylmer, June 10. All the accounts make out that Kelway was quite wrong.
204. Justice Luttrell to Chief Justice Aylmer, June 5, 1538; Ormonde’s instructions to R. Cowley, June; Lord Butler to his father and to R. Cowley, June.
205. Lord Butler to his father, June 19, 1538; Ormonde to the Irish Council, June; to R. and W. Cowley, July 16; to R. Cowley, July 20; to the Privy Council, S.P., vol. iii., p. 77; Grey to the King, June 4 and July 26; Council of Ireland to Cromwell, June 10, July 24, and August 22.
206. Brabazon, Aylmer, and Alen to Cromwell, Aug. 24, 1538. For the treatment of O’More see Ormonde to R. Cowley, June 1538; Aylmer and Alen’s articles against Grey, June. Lord Butler to R. Cowley, June 20. Articles alleged on the part of O’More, S.P., vol. iii. p. 26. Council of Ireland to Cromwell, June 10. Luttrell to Aylmer, June 5. The ten years’ truce between Charles V. and Francis I. was concluded June 28, so that Lord Butler must refer to some earlier negotiations.
207. Brabazon, Aylmer, and Alen to Cromwell, July 24, 1538.
208. Grey to the King, July 26, 1538. Brabazon, Aylmer, and Alen to Cromwell, Aug. 22. Information against Lord Leonard Grey, Oct. 1840, in Carew.
